from the
Gospel of Markos (Mark)

Darkness at noon

33At when it was the sixth hour, at noon, the whole earth became dark until three in the afternoon. 34At three o'clock, Yeshua called out words from the Psalms in a loud voice,
Eloi Eloi, lama sabachtani?
which translated is,
My God, my God, why do you
abandon me?162
35Some of those standing near heard him and said, "See, he calls to Eliyah."163 36And someone ran up with a sponge soaked in vinegar,164 placed it on a reed stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Let him alone. Let us see if Yeshayah comes to take him down."
37But Yeshua let out a great cry and breathed his last breath.
38And the curtain of the Temple tore in two from top to bottom.
39The centurion who was near saw him breathe his last and said, "Truly this man was the son of God."165

His women look on

40There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were both Miryam of Magdala166 and Miryam mother of Yaakov the younger and of Joses,167 and Shlomit,168 41who were in the Galil following him and serving him, and there were many other women who had gone up with him to Yerushalayim.

The body in linen entombed in rock

42Evening had already come, and since it was Friday (day of Preparations), the Day-Before-Shabbat,169 43Yosef of Arimathaia,170 a prominent member of the council, who was also looking for the kingdom of God, boldly went to Pilatus and asked for the body of Yeshua.
44Pilatus wondered if he was already dead and called the centurion, and asked him if he was already dead. 45Informed by the centurion, he gave the corpse to Yosef.
46Then Yosef brought a linen cloth, took him down, and wrapped him in the linen cloth and placed him in a tomb which had been cut out of the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.
47Miryam of Magdala and Miryam of Joses saw where he was laid.

CHAPTER 16

The women in the empty tomb

When Shabbat was over, Miryam of Magdala and Miryam of Yaakov and Shlomit bought aromatic spices so they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb as the sun was rising. 3They said to each other, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? 4They looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away. And it was huge. 5Then on going into the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right, dressed in a white robe, and they were utterly astonished.171
6He said to them, "Don't be alarmed. You are looking for Yeshua of Natzeret, the one who was cruicified. He was raised. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go tell his students and Kefa, 'He is going ahead of you to the Galil. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "
8So they went out and fled from the tomb, seized by trembling and ecstacy. And they said nothing to anyone. They were afraid.172

Footnotes:

162Ps. 22.1. Yeshua's words are in Aramaic.

163The bystanders mistakenly heard "Eliyah" for "Eloi," "my God."

164From the Greek, meaning "vinegar" or "sour wine."

165A centurion was a commander of 100 Roman soldiers. In the story of the crucifixion, after Yeshua has been mocked by Jewish bystanders, the high priests and those crucified with him, and the curtain in the Temple has sympathetically torn in two, foretelling the Temple's imminent doom, the first to recognize that Yeshua was the son of God is the commander of the execution squad. This exoneration of Roman leadership, who now are not only guiltless in Yeshua's execution but the first in Jerusalem to state his divinity, follows the pattern of preparing the move of the authority of Yeshua's messiahship to Rome.

166Mary Magdalene from the city of Magdala.

167It is not known who Miryam mother of Yaakov the younger and of Joses is. She may be Yeshua's mother, though there is not a consensus in favor of this view. Since she is called the mother of Yaakov rather than Yeshua, it is unlikely that Mark intended to identify her as Miryam mother of Yeshua. Elsewhere Yeshua's brothers are identified as James, Joses (Joseph), Judas, and Simon, that is, Yaakov, Yosef, Yehuda, and Shimon. In Mark, Yeshua's mother is not portrayed sympathetically, but by Luke, the last synoptic gospel, Miryam is glorified. The virgin birth is stated in the birth stories of Mathew and Luke, and the nativity in Luke fixes her later image.

168Salome from the Greek, from the Hebrew (shlomit or shelomit). Salome may be the wife of Zebedee and so the mother of James and John.

169The Greek word for "preparation," (paraskevi), has come to mean "Friday" in the Greek. Here, it means both Friday and preparation for the Pesach. Another word for Friday is Prosabbaton, meaning "the day before Shabbat (the Sabbath)."

170Yosef of Arimathea was presumably a member of the Sanhedrin, the council that, according to the gospels, asked for Yeshua's death. This apparent contradiction of role may be softened by the description of his piety and vision of the kingdom of God. Arimathea is from the Greek (Arimathaia,) and is identified with either Ramathaim or Rentis, fifteen or twenty miles east of Jaffa.

171Matthew identifies the young man as an angel (28.2).

172The earliest manuscripts end with the dramatic fear of the women in ekstasis, her rendered "ecstasy," which conveys the literal meaning of "being outside themselves" as well as "ecstasy" with its multiple meanings of "amazement" in "being elsewhere" and "beside themselves" with fear.
There are now two "orphan" supplements, no generally held to be added later, which are said to smooth out the "abrupt" ending. They are now considered to be later additions to make Mark conform to the appearances of the resurrected messiah as revealed in the other gospels.

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